Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

“It doesn’t interest me to manipulate the French. I’m not keyed in to their value system. Because they are not my people, their imagined praise of condemnation means nothing to me. Paris, it seems, is where I’ve come to dream about America” (263).

Sedaris' experience living in Paris seems to reverberate with these kind of moments; he is able to spend his days watching American movies in a way he could not in America, is given free reign to judge his fellow Americans visiting Paris, and finds that the distance grants him a different, and largely more interesting, perspective on his homeland. 

Sedaris' clumsy grasp of the French language as well as his deep-rooted sense of "Americanness" separates himself from the French people just as surely as his decision to live abroad separates him from his countrymen. Observing from some indefinable middle ground, Sedaris can be simultaneously scathing and sympathetic, fully indiscriminate in his determination to poke fun at himself and those around him. This extends to his "dreams about America" that can only flourish apart from it; the detachment he gains by living in France seems to clarify something about America for him. While at times the valiant idea of "American optimism" becomes the victim of his wit, there is a decided preoccupation with America and Americanness, and being in Paris only serves to magnify its presence in his life. 

How can we read this preoccupation, especially in light of his decision to remain in Paris? In what way does living life as an expatriate allow Sedaris to "dream about" and experience America in ways that he could not when actually living there?

Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik

"Paris, on the other hand, looked exactly as it was supposed to look. It wore its heart on its sleeve, and the strange thing was that the heart it wore so openly was in other ways so closed—mysterious, uninviting" (7).

This description of Paris is inherently paradoxical, and further more, Gopnik is aware of this, admitting that it is "strange" to describe something as both open and closed, emotional yet enigmatic. In what way is this sense of paradox reflected in Gopnik's essays, as well as in the other texts we have explored throughout the semester? Do the relationships and character developments within these works mirror this enigma, and how can an exploration of the dynamics of Paris illuminate our analysis?

Gopnik's main draw towards Paris is an idealized one, and in this way his perspective on the city is colored by romanticism. Is it this romanticism that creates the personification of someone "wearing their heart on their sleeve," or does Paris indeed lend itself to that type of characterization? How can we use our prior readings to discover the true nature of Paris, and of the American experience within that sphere?

Dreaming in French, Alice Kaplan

"France gave each of these women a deep and lasting confidence, confirmed their spirit of adventure and guaranteed their freedom from home constraints."

Dreaming in French is principally an exploration of what Kaplan calls the "fantasy" of France. What is it about France, and Paris in particular, that is so fantastical to the expatriates that were (and continue to be) drawn there?  For the three women discussed in this text, what is in about France and French culture that cultivates this "confidence" and "freedom," and how does it contrast so starkly against the culture they leave behind in America? In the same way, how does learning and speaking French create dimensions within the lives of each woman? Jacqueline Bouvier emphasizes the "Frenchness" of her name in much the same way that her ancestors romanticized their origins. For Sontag, "much of her own power and prestige in the United States — her aura — was connected to what she learned, then learned to transmit, from France." 

What are the implications of this American romanticization of Paris (something that Baldwin discusses in his essays in Notes of a Native Son), and what can it reveal about the individuals presented as well as the disparate cultures of each place?

Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin

"I'm sort of queer for girls myself." (Part I, Ch. 2)

What are the implications of David referring to his attraction to women as "queer," particularly in the context of Guilluame's bar? Virtually all of the men in the novel are homosexual, which creates an interesting backdrop and distorts society's (as well as David's) adherence to heteronormativity. In this sphere, a man's interest in women is queer, while an interest in other men is standard and accepted behavior.

Queer is not a synonym for gay; rather, it represents the idea that sexual/gender identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are. In this way, David's inversion of normative sexuality in this statement makes sense. Yet there are certain implications of choosing to subvert typical definitions of "queerness" that seem to contradict David's denial and repression of his sexuality for a large portion of the text. Is he merely playing along in order to fit in with the scene at the gay bar? What are his motivations for ascribing to a non-heteronormative perspective in this scene, and how do they affect the novel's perspective as a whole?

Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Talk is men. When I talk I say to myself that I am probably Dick. Already I have even been my son, remembering how wise and slow he is. Sometimes I am Doctor Dohmler and one time I may even be an aspect of you, Tommy Barban." 

Nicole Diver is the only character that gets a chance at first person narration. This affords us a glimpse into her character that we are not given with the other figures of the novel.

I find it interesting that she acknowledges that even (or perhaps especially) in moments of solitude, she is not herself. Her inner monologue is controlled by men, just as her life and certainly her psyche have been controlled by the actions of the men around her. 

What are the implications of Fitzgerald privileging Nicole over the other characters in this way? The insights we as readers are given is complicated by the fact that Nicole has been diagnosed as a schizophrenic. Can we believe her narration? If "talk is men," who is she speaking as in these passages? 

A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

"All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife -- second class -- and the hotel where Verlaine had died where I had a room on the top floor where I worked" (4).

As A Moveable Feast is a narrative focused on Hemingway’s youth, early relationships, and his development as a writer, I though it only fitting to explore how his writing in this text hints at that growth and how his relationship with Gertrude Stein and early methods of writing informed his stylistic and rhetorical choices. In doing so, I found myself drawn to several interpretations of Hemingway’s writing as reminiscent of the Cubism movement in art. Like Cubist painters, Hemingway is not bound to copying traditional form; instead, he presents a new reality by fragmenting sentences and phrases. A large portion of the novel is dedicated to exploring Hemingway’s relationship with Gertrude Stein, who was perhaps the most successful of "Cubist" writers. She manipulated the English language in such a way that its end results reflected those of modernist painters. Hemingway’s style was almost certainly influenced by the time he spent with Stein, and that influence can be seen in A Moveable Feast; the text is defined by Hemingway’s careful enjambment of descriptive language and commentary, and seemingly innocuous and insignificant observations broken up by pointed interpretation (as seen in the sentence above). 

The passage above is a perfect example of Hemingway's definitive use of simple but often difficult to decipher sentences. This example is emblematic of the deceiving simplicity of his sentence structure; unadorned, seemingly arbitrary observations interspersed with reflection. 

By looking at the similarities between what modernist artists like Picasso were attempting to do with image and what writers like Hemingway and Stein were doing with language, can we consider Hemingway to be a “Cubist” writer? How does his abstract narrative style incorporate elements of Cubism?

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein

"Hemingway, remarks are not literature."

It seems to me that the strength of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas lies in the power of its remarks - on Gertrude Stein herself, on the writers and artists she came in contact with, and on the nature of writing and its relationship with conversation. Remarks may not be literature, but this book seems to be an attempt to make them precisely that. Stein's genius lies in her ability to create complexity and poetry by exploring the interplay between conversational and written English. The story unfolds like a conversation between Toklas and Stein, and is all the more rich and dynamic for it. The style is a variant of Stein's own vernacular, and while the observations of the text may not be merely "remarks" without substance, there is a definite relationship between casual conversation and the commentary that exists within this pseudo-autobiography. At one point Stein (speaking as Toklas) maintains that "Stein said commas were unnecessary, the sense should be intrinsic and not have to be explained by commas and otherwise commas were only a sign that one should pause and take breath but one should know of oneself when one wanted to pause and take breath," once again creating a parallel between the spoken and written word.

How are we to understand this discrepancy between Stein's words of advice to Hemingway and her own writing, and how does it influence our interpretation of the text?

Nightwood, Djuna Barnes

"Love becomes the deposit of the heart, analogous in all degrees to the 'findings' in a tomb. [...] In Nora's heart lay the fossil of Robin" (61). 

Throughout Nightwood, love is a brutalization and a curse. Even the deeply-felt love between Nora and Robin becomes a stew of hate, disgust, and fear, and the depiction of the "fossilized" Robin within Nora's heart echoes the connection between love and death that is continually being referenced in the novel. Nora finds that she longs for Robin's death, feeling as though only "in death Robin would belong to her" (63). In one instance Nora comments that "we give death to a child when we give it a doll," corrupting ideas of childhood and comfort and turning the maternal instincts a doll evokes into something irrevocably sinister. There is a decomposition of order and representation in the language that mirrors the decay of relationships in the events of the narrative. Can a connection be drawn between this inescapable sense of decay and the role as outcast that the characters of the novel are forced to inhabit?  There is something about these characters that makes it impossible for them to exist within the traditional social sphere. How does this sense of "otherness" contribute to their inability to create or sustain any form of love that isn't reliant upon death, fear, or hate? How do the interactions in the novel become twisted by the elliptic identities of these characters, leading to "nothing but wrath and weeping"? (175)

The Lost Lunar Baedeker, Mina Loy

"Men's eyes            look into things
Our eyes                 look out"

One of the larger themes in Mina Loy's work is the idea of redefining and often rejecting traditional modes of thinking about gender norms. In many of her poems in this volume, she confronts a society largely hostile to woman, and challenges pre-conceived ideas surrounding woman's sexuality and basic identity. In the poem "Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots," Loy creates a physically gendered space to parallel such spaces in the abstract, and in doing so criticizes the oppression and the inherent "cost" of being a woman.  In this passage, she turns to the "male gaze," which often negates the value of woman in feminist writing. The difference between looking in and looking out is subtle but significant; what does "looking out" imply for the virgins of the poem as well as women as a whole? How does looking in represent a violation or a sense of power, or imply a cognizance and intellectual capacity that is lacking in the act of simply looking out? There are many instances throughout The Lost Lunar Baedeker in which Loy satirizes the idea of woman as inherently without understanding or deeper intellect. The women of this poem are hollow, empty, and unfulfilled. How is Loy combatting the accepted notions of marriage, relationships, and gender identity in this work, and specifically in this distinction between looking in and looking out?

The Ambassadors, Henry James

"Miss Gostrey had dined with him at his hotel, face to face over a small table on which the lighted candles had rose-coloured shades; and the rose-coloured shades and the small table and the soft fragrance of the lady--had anything to his mere sense ever been so soft?--were so many touches in he scarce knew what positive high picture. He had been to the theatre, even to the opera, in Boston, with Mrs. Newsome, more than once acting as her only escort; but there had been no little confronted dinner, no pink lights, no whiff of vague sweetness, as a preliminary: one of the results of which was that at present, mildly rueful, though with a sharpish accent, he actually asked himself WHY there hadn't. There was much the same difference in his impression of the noticed state of his companion, whose dress was "cut down," as he believed the term to be, in respect to shoulders and bosom, in a manner quite other than Mrs. Newsome's, and who wore round her throat a broad red velvet band with an antique jewel--he was rather complacently sure it was antique--attached to it in front" (89-90).

Strether's first impressions of Europe are decidedly visual, with a focus on appearance and its effect on perception. In this moment at the beginning of the novel, Strether is struck by Maria Gostrey's neckline and the "broad red velvet band" she wears around her neck, and is even more taken aback by his observation of something that would have previously gone unnoticed. He feels that this cognizance serves to "complicate [...] his vision," and he finds himself "given over to uncontrolled perceptions" (90). Themes of vision and perception are highlighted through the novel, and Strether's burgeoning awareness of the implications of these themes becomes central. What are we to make of the significance that James' ascribes to vision and perception, distorted or otherwise? 

The novel illuminates the complex process of judgement and evaluation through Strether's own shifts in awareness, and does so in such a way that our perceptions are similarly unbalanced by the end of the novel. Strether learns to appreciate the subtleties of observation and the significance of evaluating every person and situation carefully and without bias, but the very nature of the characters within the novel and of Paris itself makes his journey a difficult one. He wishes for a pleasingly comfortable and aesthetic understanding of the world around him, and ultimately finds that the truths he discovers are unreconcilable to that desire. Strether initially finds it difficult to see past the "surface" of things, principally his perception of Chad and his relationship with Marie, and the limitations of his perspective can be seen. He is situated in the novel as a observer, further emphasizing the significance of "seeing," yet his observations often lack perception. Just as in Paris, where "what seemed all surface one moment seemed all depth the next," Strether finds that his interactions with the people he meets in Europe are unpredictable, and his own judgement must shift throughout the novel as a consequence (68).

How does James' preoccupation with visual perception frame the narrative and Strether's experiences? What does the interplay between false or mere surface perceptions and true insight of "depth" mean for our own evaluation of the novel and its characters?

Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton

"It's against the custom of the country. And whose fault is that? The man's again-I don't mean Ralph, I mean the genus he belongs to: homo sapiens, Americanus. Why haven't we taught our women to take an interest in our work? Simply because we don't take enough interest in them. [...] Why does the European woman interest herself so much more in what the men are doing? Because she's so important to them that they make it worth her while! She's not a parenthesis, as she is here-she's in the very middle of the picture" (182).

Undine echoes this statement early in the novel in regards to her father's business; "That was man's province; and what did men go 'down town' for but to bring back the spoils to their women?" (39). This theme of female victimization is an interesting perspective, yet seems at odds with Wharton's portrayal of Undine. Is she a result of this society's blatant neglect of women? She is hardly a sympathetic portrait of feminism; rather, she is defined by pure manipulation, deceit, and overwhelming vanity. Her actions stem from an all-consuming desire to be the "dominant figure of the scene" at all times, and for every failure in this vein she endeavors to be more vivacious, more striking, more influential in the sphere of society (32). Is this a direct result of being condemned to a role as a "parenthesis"? Before their marriage, Ralph Marvell certainly sees Undine as in danger of being overtaken by the petty and "cheaply fashionable" nature of New York's gentry, imagining "devouring monster Society careering up to make a mouthful of her" and vowing to save her from its clutches, but he soon falls victim to her own selfish machinations (74).

Yet Wharton is decidedly not a moralist but a commentator. Her role is not to condemn or offer solutions for society's ills but rather to observe and satirize the "paradoxes" of society, making her intentions difficult to ascertain. Does Undine represent this victimization that Bowen describes? Does Wharton mean for us to agree with Bowen and condemn American society for having created a dynamic between the sexes that allows Undine's selfish nature to flourish and indeed encourages it? Perhaps her vanity is a testament to the role she has been groomed to play: "a mere bit of flesh and blood," as Popple puts it (63).